NATIONAL STRATEGY
Singapore has set a national target for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 36% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels. Singapore is also working towards stabilising its emissions with the aim of peaking around 2030 (Singapore Climate Action Plan, 2016). This makes improving energy efficiency as Singapore’s key strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and plans have been made to expand the scope of current initiatives across all sectors especially the power generation sector (NCCS, MEWR & MND, 2016).

MARKET INCENTIVES
The Green-e Renewable Energy Standard for Singapore allows Green-e Energy certification of renewable energy products throughout Singapore, in order to accelerate the development of renewable generation and renewable electricity markets, and to provide consumers a meaningful mechanism through which they can express demand for renewable electricity (Green-e, 2017). Instead of subsidies, Singapore has taken proactive steps to introduce regulatory enhancements to facilitate the entry of renewable energy when such technologies become commercially viable (EMA, 2017). The Government’s support for renewables mainly comes in the form of funding for Research & Development to develop capabilities within the industry.

PUBLIC FUNDING PROGRAMMES
More than S$800 million public funding has been set aside by the Singapore Government for research in energy, water, green buildings and addressing land scarcity, of which S$140 million is allocated for research into clean energy technologies under the banner of the Energy Innovation Programme Office (EIPO) (EDB, 2015). Ocean renewable energy has been identified as one of the prominent alternative energy by Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) specifically towards remote coastal and island regions as part of its strategic research interests. The Government also welcomes clean technology companies to use Singapore and its islands as a ‘Living Lab’ to testbed and demonstrate innovative solutions before scaling up for the rest of the world. In 2017, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) also secured investments from six clean energy companies worth $500 million for next five years (EDB, 2017).